Of course it's the same thing.

I guess I hit the conservatives in this case because I've read a blogger or two that absolutely rail on the New York Times and while they don't come out and say it, almost imply that things would be different for John McCain if the liberal media wasn't in the tank for Obama.

You could have a Republican state controlled media and I'd still put my money on Obama.

Buc's right. In the grand scheme of things, this is all a little silly. I'm just a little amazed that the NY Times would do a straight hit piece on the wife of a presidential candidate 2 weeks before the election. But, much like Limbaugh attacking the left, why be surprised? Just accept it and move on.

It is a huge problem.

Most news mediums are dramatically in the tank for one agenda or another. The ones that attempt to legitimately report news are, for the most part, so afraid to appear unbalanced that they have to tiptoe around real stories and/or over-represent non-stories so that they look like they are giving equal time/scrutiny.

I think that's an excellent summary. There are many, though, that pretend it doesn't exist.

So Michelle Obama is connected to a program at the University of Chicago hospital that attempts to divert non-critical patients from emergency rooms to local doctors where they will most likely get faster, cheaper treatment (isn't the over-reliance on hospital ERs one of the biggest problems in health care today?). One of Obama's earmarks is $1M to one of the largest, most respected hospitals in Chicago. Michelle Obama is a board member for a food distributor that (gasp) does business with Wal-Mart.

... and you wonder why none of that is getting play?

You're right, if McCain funneled over $1 million to his wife's beer distribution company in the form of earmarks, no one would report on it. The point is these items were not even mentioned in a total puff piece on Michelle (atleast report it and let the readers decide if it's meaningful). Then, 6 weeks later, a hatchet job on Cindy comes out talking about a small drug addiction to pain killers 20 years ago and some crazy claim about her lying about not having half siblings. It's just ridiculous. But, like Buc says, you just have to treat the NY Times like the left treats Rush Limbaugh. It's a shame, but the truth.

I read the Cindy McCain piece. I didn't think the stuff about Cindy was too weird or harmful. So she took pain pills 15 years ago... America loves redemption stories.

What did seem weird to me was how it seemed to be subtly dancing around McCain's character -- kind of implying he wasn't a good husband or family man without really coming out and saying it directly. That made it pretty awkward to me. I wonder if we'll hear about the Carol divorce next week...

hmmm.... beer distribution company = University of Chicago hospital. Really? That's the argument you're going with?

If you ignore earmarks requested by McCain and Obama, I wonder how much was requested for hospitals across the country and how much was requested for beer distribution companies (or similar industries)?

I'm sure we will. The polls are starting to tighten up a bit...

Here's some more news on the guy who was only 8 years old when the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers was active, and who has no association with him.

Obama Praised 'Searing and Timely' Book by Ayers

So giving feedback on a book is now incriminating? The book in question was "A Kind and Just Parent: Children of the Juvenile Court". Not quite "Anarchist's Cookbook" or anything like that.

They were tightening up, but now they've spread far apart again. Gallup's LV #1 model got as close as 2 points, but is now at 5 points. Zogby was 3 pts. and is now at 6 pts. And if the race is really tightening up, then McCain's decision to forego Colorado and bank his whole election on winning Pennsylvania doesn't make any sense.

Okay, let's read what Obama said.



Wow, that's truly sinister and terrible. Obama wasn't a fan of the juvenile court system at the time. What's your point?

Vic has been posting some real quality content lately...







Shit, eventhough I strongly disagree with Arles and MBBF, and think some of their conclusions are silly, at least they're attempting to engage in intelligent discourse. I firmly believe that Sports Night quote in my sig.

Good piece. It was nice to see. I think the red-haired was hitting the idiot so hard because he thought the Kurd girl was hot. :)

Is this the same paper that employs Bill Kristol?

Actually, it reads a lot like the cover story Newsweek did on Cindy McCain a few months ago. I don't think it's a strange article, but it does seem to be somewhat strange timing. The Newsweek article was published early in the summer, if my memory serves, and that seemed like a more relevant time to publish what's basically a biopic.

But whatever, newspaper editors have to fill inches and all that.

I actually don't remember it being a scandal, though I'm not surprised the Sun-Times wants to paint it in that way. The Sun-Times has cherry-picked a lot of quotes from people who don't like the program, but there were plenty of people on the neighborhood level who thought the program was a step in the right direction.

Bill Kristol writes for the National Review, correct?

Actually, I thought the NYT piece on Cindy McCain was, like the Newsweek cover story I mentioned previously, pretty sympathetic. If it's a hit piece on anyone, it's a hit piece on McCain, who comes across as an arrogant, unsympathetic skirt-chaser.

Comparing the NYT to Rush Limbaugh is a bit much, though.

I believe he writes for both. I know he writes for the NYT, because every week DailyKos has someone who lambastes his latest column there. :D

Ah, thanks. He must write an ad-hoc column for them. Probably the token conservative approach. :)

The confluence of traditional reporting and blogging has, probably, done the NYT (and other papers) some harm. The article Arles is upset about comes from a quasi-online section of the NYT that is devoted to regular updates, blogging-style of the Presidential Election. It's a different section from the regular "Washington" part of the newspaper which reports political news, objectively.

The "quasi-online" or "blogging-style" sections (whatever you want to call them) are definitely influenced by the left-leaning editorial board of the NYT, and are written by, clearly, left-leaning reports. Furthermore, in the quest to be more like "blogging", there's clearly less of an onus for this reporting to be objective, so the subjective tendencies of the reporters and the editorial board show through.

That's fine with obvious blogs like, say, DailyKos. However, I think it represents a problem for newspapers of record like the NYT. While they may think there's sufficient division between their "blogging" efforts and the rest of their reporting, this division probably doesn't really register for most people who go to the site and read these stories.

It's an interesting problem for newspapers to grapple with and will obviously continue to evolve. In the meantime, however, it provides the slighted party (the GOP, in this case) a cause celebe whenever they need it. As Andrew Sullivan recently pointed out, all we've really done is taken the "conversation" from being, in 2001, the arguments of a few internet cranks yelling incomprehensibly at each other to, in 2008, the same cranks, now with huge followings, bleeding over into mainstream media.

Of course as Bucc would point out, this is simply "journalism" of the 19th century all over again, except with faster transmission rates.

I believe David Brooks is the token conservative. Bill Kristol is the token idiot. :D

Doesn't Fox News employ Alan Colmes? Fair and Balanced! ;)

Barack Obama wins AdAge marketer of the Year.

Obama Wins! ... Ad Age's Marketer of the Year - Advertising Age - MOY 2008

He beat out Apple, Zappos, Nike and Coors. McCain was 6th, probably so they wouldn't be accused of shutting him out completely.

For reference, here are the regular op-ed columnists at the NYT, with my guesses on affiliation:

Charles M. Blow: Don't know.

David Brooks: Goldwater/Reagan Conservative.

Roger Cohen: Unclear, but I believe he's left-of-center.

Gail Collins: Liberal. Has a running co-column with Brooks on the election.

Maureen Dowd: Liberal.

Thomas L. Friedman: Ostensibly Liberal, though a hawk (famously supported the Iraq War). I'm biased, though, because I think he's a quack.

Bob Herbert: Liberal.

Nicholas Kristof: Liberal. Focuses almost exclusively on the social problems in the developing world.

William Kristol: Beats me. Clearly conservative (or at least Republican) this election cycle. Frequently divorced from reality, and facts. Pretty much every left-leaning blog eviscerates his columns regularly with well-cited posts disproving all of his conclusions.

Paul Krugman: Nobel Laureate, Economics. Ideology probably right down the center, but has repeatedly bashed Bush, so is considered "liberal" by the online GOP. On the other hand, did write a series of columns called "The Conscience of a Liberal"....

Frank Rich: Liberal.


So there you go.

I think Friedman is kind of a Scoop Jackson Dem. Left of center, but very hawkish. Though I guess these days Liebermann is a better analogue.

What a socialist, huh?


Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book V, chapter 2, Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society.

Not that I favor Obamanomics or think he couldn't present them better. But this absurd notion of people benefitting from the system that's in place and expecting not to contribute to it, to me, seems a little ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as giving people with no tax liability some form of rebate for merely existing.

In similarly relevant news, the world was once considered flat.

Fixed.

Yes, well if someone on the right believes it, it must be prevelent.

:withstupid:

They may not pay income taxes, but they certainly pay taxes everytime they spend money.

Ever since the Reagan era commission on Social Security people have been paying FICA taxes that go into the general fund and serve as a de facto income tax.

It's not so much that the pioneer of our economic system is irrelevant, as much as he is fallible, just like every other philosopher, economic or otherwise.

That's not say Smith didn't have a point, or that those who are "rich" don't have an obligation, be it legal or moral, to help those less fortunate. I don't think there's much debate in this country over the rich paying their fair share, or even more. The debate is over how much more, and who is defined as "rich". Keep in mind that Smith was writing in Scotland in the late 1700's, and disparity of wealth was much greater in Great Britain than in the colonies.

As for whether or not the way the Founders saw the world in 1789 must be preserved word for word and ideal for ideal... that's a little tricky. I think you have to differentiate between opinions, laws, and ideals. Washington's views on foreign policy, for instance, made a great deal of sense in a world that was much bigger than it is today. It's easy to practice neutrality when an ocean really does seperate you from other countries. But that was just Washington's policy... not hardwired into our framework of government.

When the stuff that's hardwired into our Constitution need to be changed, as they inevitably will, the Founders designed a way for that to happen. It's called amending the Constitution. It's a difficult and lengthy process, which is as it should be, given that we're changing the basic ground rules of our government.

So, if you want to try and repeal the 2nd Amendment, go for it. It's the intellectually honest way of going about trying to change an enumerated right, in my opinion. BTW, according to a Gallup poll earlier this year, about 73% of Americans believe the 2nd Amendment is an individual right... so good luck with that.

If, on the other hand, you're simply going to say that since we no longer live in 1787, those rules no longer need apply, it seems to me like you need to design some new rules for our government.

As for the ideals... yes, I absolutely believe that we need to adhere to the ideals of those who created our system of government. If we're going to work within the system they designed, it makes sense to me that it would and has functioned best if/when we are trying to uphold their ideals as well.

I have to admit, POTUS 08 on XM was carrying a replay of former President Clinton's speech in Ohio yesterday. As much as I currently prefer Obama to McCain, if somehow, someway he was running for prez again, I'd think I'd vote for him (maybne it's nostalgia, and the fact that he's really the only former president still out and about and making public appearances)

If it weren't for term limits, I'd say it would be quite possible that Clinton would still be President and headed for his 5th term.

Imagine how fun a Clinton vs. Reagan (both in their prime) would be?

If he got elected in the first place. If he ran in 1992, he'd be running against Vice President Bush, after President Reagan stepped down and who knows what would have happened in that case.

Well of course. It's likely the people who became President would be completely different without term limits. Eisenhower was still popular at the end of his second term (he was the first to be forced out) and probably would have won a 3rd term if he ran. If that happened, who knows what would have happened and who would have become President after that.

"I was worried with all the liberal media here, who has their head up Obama's ass right now?"

Warming up a crowd a few days ago in Concord, NC for a John McCain appearance, Representative Robin Hayes stated “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.” This was minutes after he said “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean” before going on stage.

After the big reaction Michele Bachmann's comments got you think the Republicans would cool it with this kind of junk.

politico.com

The funnniest part is the evolution of the story, and how strongly he denied it. Even as it was being confirmed by other people. Then finally once the audio was released, it was admitted to. Must be that gotcha media that shows up early for events looking for non-stories.

It's like these people really don't know that the internet exists. "Well, I didn't see anyone in the crowd with a mimeograph, so we can just deny what I said."

And that's probably the one thing that bothers me about this at all, the sense that there's a growing trend toward denying what you know you said. I don't mean clarifications, I don't mean stuff that comes out wrong, I mean just flat out saying something & then running from it like a little bitch. Maybe it's just my perception but I feel as though I've seen more instances of people saying what they meant and then backpedaling away from it as fast as they can in the past year than I can recall in the decade or more prior to that.

If you're going to say it, mean it, and stand by it. If you can't do the last part, then do the world a favor & STFU because you're just wasting everybody's time flapping your gums.

edit to add: And I'm sorry to say that it's something I've noticed lately a lot more from the right than the left.

I think they're doing it (hit and run) because it's what they think the people want (they seem to get decent responses from the crowds) but once it hits the media it's pretty despised. I think I saw a poll that said something like 60% of people think that John McCain is running a really negative campaign that the majority of people don't seem to like. So here you have these more "local" events where people say these stupid things that play to the crowd and may work on a local level, but I think these people are under the impression that the local crowds are representing their targets when it's clearly not.

Don't know if that's clear, but I think having the "gotcha" media around to run these stories is really hurting on a national level, but maybe not so much on local levels.

That's because Al Gore invented the Internet, so folks on the left know about YouTube and its ability to record the stupid shit people say.

in an interview on CNN Palin just lied flat out: quoting Biden as saying 'if Obama is elected he'll be challenged by an [economic], uh, uh, International Crisis if you elect obama.

that is NOt what biden said. He did not say electing Obama would bring on a crisis as a causal effect. He said [whomever] is the next President they'll likely be tested [very early] by an international crisis.